Travel Directions

On February 24th Garrison Keillor will read a poem from Joan Siegel's book "Hyacinth for the Soul," Deerbrook Editions 2009. The poem he requested to read is "Travel Directions." I hope you'll be listening because Joan is an accomplished writer from Blooming Grove, NY, and has many fine poems in this book. We are pleased Mr. Keillor has chosen to read from Joan's book, as we are always pleased when he chooses to read from one of our books, giving us information about writers, and reading, bringing poetry to the air, as ever, thank you Garrison Keillor for all that you are doing.

Garrison Keillor Reading Dawn Potter

Another poem by Dawn, "Nostalgia," was read on February 13th on "The Writer's Almanac." Dawn said this is one of her favorite poems in the book, and it is fine. I happen to think there are several very good poems in Dawn's book, and this is one of them. Thank you Garrison Keillor.

Dawn Potter previously had two poems read on "The Writer's Almanac.

Garrison Keillor read "Wednesday" on Jan 29, and "Lullaby" on Jan. 31.

These poems appear in "Boy Land & Other Poems," Deerbrook Editions, 2004. The book is still available from us directly, we ship promptly, so write or call the contact information, and we hope you'll do so. You also can order the book through amazon.com

When the archive listing is available on "The Writer's Almanac" web site we will post the link here.



Dawn has a new poetry book coming out this year from CavanKerry Press, and has a book out from University of Massachusetts Press "Tracing Paradise, Two Years in Harmony with John Milton; A Reader's Memoir." You can see more about Dawn and what she is doing here.

Upcoming Event ; Feb. 13, 2010

A Performance in Two Voices with Cello
‘The Thinking Heart’

Listen to a radio spot on MPBN about this at Martin's profile and look under Programs.

"Poignant and stirring, The Thinking Heart leaves an indelible impression. The performers transform the essence of Etty's rich inner and outer world as a chronicler of life."
Robert Bernheim, Executive Director, Holocaust & Human Rights Center of Maine

Martin Steingesser & Judy Tierney

Robin Jellis - Cello

poems based on

Etty Hillesum An Interrupted Life & Letters from Westerbork


Portland Conservatory of Music
Concert Series
Woodford Congregational Church
202 Woodford Street • Portland, Maine
Admission $15 (Reduced Admission on Request)
Saturday, February 13, 2010 • 7:30 pm

Somewhere in Etty’s long journey into the Holocaust night, she discovers light
in herself that became visible, an incandescence, still glowing.
To open her journal, or hear these poems, is to see light, feel its heat.


For Additional Information Contact
Portland Conservatory of Music • 207-775-3356
Martin Steingesser, Author & Artistic Director "mailto:windspooning@yahoo.com" 207-828-9937


Thank you to the Maine Humanities Council & Maine Arts Commission for support to The Thinking Heart

Etty Hillesum
An Interrupted Life & Letters from Westerbork

Stepping Westward—Poetry as Cairns

Stepping Westward—Poetry as Cairns
Performance & Poetry Workshop
with Martin Steingesser & Judy Tierney
Living Water Spiritual Center
93 Halifax Street, Winslow, Maine
November  14, from 9:30  am  to 3:30  pm
Fee for performance and workshop is $45, including lunch.
Pre-registration,  with fee, requested.

The program is in two parts, the first a presentation of poems, viewing and treating them as cairns that mark a way along the road we call aging. Just as the traveler marks a trail by placing stones along the way, poems may serve as guides, or be used to pay tribute or celebrate another’s passing. The program explores ways some poems guide, some reassure that—if alone—others have traveled similar paths, understood something of the terrain and moved on.
“The program itself is meant to be a journey we might be nourished to take together,” Tierney says, “stopping to lift and touch some of the poems for what reassurance, light and joy we find in them.”
In the second part, participants will be encouraged and helped in identifying moments to write about that might serve as markers, or memorials, on their own life’s path.
“We will be looking for how wind soughing among spruce and hemlock, lap of waves, the migrating geese, conversation and weather ruffle the heart’s fur, reflect and carry our stories,” Steingesser says.
Steingesser is the author of a book of poems, "Brothers of Morning", and also a performer. Portland’s first Poet Laureate (2007-09), he was selected to receive the Maine Alliance for Art Education’s Bill Bonyun Award in 2006 “for exemplified talent and professionalism as an artist and for being an inspiration to students, teachers and the community.”
Judy Tierney has been presenting poems in Maine for several years and has been nourished in the garden of poetry over many life seasons. She was creator and host of a weekly radio program, “Walking in the Air,” celebrating poetry and its voices, on WRFR, Rockland’s community radio station.
Steingesser and Tierney also perform together with a cellist in an award-winning program, “The Thinking Heart,” an original ensemble work based on the writings of a Dutch woman who died in the Holocaust, which has been the recipient of several Arts and Humanities grants from the Maine Humanities Council and Maine Arts Commission.


For additional information go to title link; http://retreatinmaine.com/calendar.htm
Or Contact • Living Water Spiritual Center, 207-872-2370, or info@retreatmaine.com
Martin Steingesser & Tierney, Presenters, 207-828-9937, or windspooning@yahoo.com

13 POETS & A CHEMIST READING

13 POETS & A CHEMIST READING

for carbon reduction

in conjunction with

International Day of Climate Action

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24, 12-3 pm

Bangor Public Library
145 Harlow Street, Bangor
Maine

The world has only a very narrow window of opportunity to undertake a dramatic shift towards a low-carbon society and prevent the worst scenarios of scientists from coming true. In anticipation of the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December, an International Day of Climate Action has been spearheaded by 350.org, the brainchild of environmental writer Bill McKibben. More than a number, 350 signifies the safe upper limit of CO2 in our atmosphere.

Join an impressive gathering of Maine poets for readings that reflect their concerns for the environment. The afternoon will be hosted by Kathleen Ellis & will include live jazz, a closing reception, & book sales & signings.


Featuring:

CHRISTIAN BARTER * HENRY BRAUN

LINDA BUCKMASTER * CHERYL DAIGLE

KATHLEEN ELLIS with chemist FRANÇOIS AMAR

LEONORE HILDEBRANDT * GARY LAWLESS

KRISTEN LINDQUIST * CARL LITTLE

DAWN POTTER * CANDICE STOVER

ELIZABETH TIBBETTS * JEFFREY THOMSON

Carl Little, Dawn Potter, and Candice Stover all have books published by Deerbrook Editions. This should be a great event with so many excellent writers and for an important cause worthy of everyones attention.

Award for The Last Island

Deerbrook Editions is Pleased to Announce
The Last Island has received
The Jane Kenyon Award for Outstanding Book of Poetry

The Last Island
Poems by Mimi White
82 pages; 6 x 9 trade paper; price $14.00; ISBN 978-0-9712488-8-5
with cover photograph by Sharon Beals 



IN PRAISE OF THE LAST ISLAND

In these deft poems Mimi White traces with great sensitivity a landscape of intimacy. It is a place that is hazardous and rewarding, brimming with feeling that has been tried and retried.  One reads poetry to deepen one’s sense of what it is to be alive- these poems do that with admirable concision.
—Baron Wormser

Mimi White’s mesmerizing book, The Last Island, is a many-faceted love story and, like love, insists you look again in wonder at history, your own gardens, relationships, children, pets, your nearly unbearable losses, and your own mortality. Through the alchemy of these smart, strong poems, you come to realize just how lucky you are to be alive. In the book’s first poem, the narrator, while watching a house burn down, finds herself in a reverie concerning the gifts and grief that come from a passionate relationship. And it’s the burning house that stayed with me as I read this book. The body itself is a house, of sorts and living — a fire full of terror but also great beauty. Be prepared as you read for many unexpected transformations, for revelations that arise from the most common events: visiting an old poet in his garden, feeding your beloved dog although you know he will die soon, releasing a newly healed bird into the orchard.  And best of all, after you finish reading, these poems stay with you, their richness, their music, their sturdy love returning just when you need them most.
—Mekeel McBride

Praise for Mimi White- The Philbrick Poetry Award 2000
“These are poems of a deceptive quiet and simplicity, just that they make, together, a landscape of painful, almost surreal insistence.”
—Robert Creeley

Mimi White has been teaching creative writing for twenty-five years and is Co-Director of PicturePoets of AIR, a non-profit organization that provides enriching arts and cultural experiences to teenage girls. She has been a finalist and a recipient of a NH State Fellowship in Poetry. Her chapbook "The Singed Horizon" was selected by Robert Creeley as the recipient of the 2000 Philbrick Poetry Award. Poet Laureate of Portsmouth, New Hampshire 2005-2007, she is currently working to reduce the effects of global warming as a member of Rye, New Hampshire’s Energy Committee.

Published by Deerbrook Editions - P.O. Box 542 - Cumberland, ME 04021
Phone & FAX 207-829-5038

Available from; the publisher single title orders are $16.50 postage paid; Amazon.com; listed with Books In Print; Baker & Taylor . . .
Now distributed by Small Press Distribution http://www.spdbooks.org

Steingesser read on The Writer's Almanac

Martin Steingesser, author of the book "Brothers of Morning", had the poem, "This Longing", read on the air Augusy 18th. Congratulations Martin. This is the second poem from the book read on "The Writer's Almanac," if I am not mistaken. "Brothers of Morning" is the first book publihed by Deerbrook Editions, soon to go into a second printing.











This Longing

... awoke to rain
around 2:30 this morning
thinking of you, because I'd said
only a few days before, this

is what I wanted, to lie with you in the dark
listening how rain sounds
in the tree beside my window,
on the sill, against the glass, damp

cool air on my face. I am loving
fresh smells, light flashes in the
black window, love how you are here
when you're not, knowing we will

lie close, nothing between us; and maybe
it will be still, as now, the longing
that carries us
into each other's arms

asleep, neither speaking
least it all too soon turn to morning, which
it does. Rain softens, low thunder, a car
sloshes past.


Look up the show for Aug 18 2009 here

Thank you Garrison Keillor.